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Parking brake doesn't work after rear brake/rotor change


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I had my rear brake/rotors changed recently on my '02 Outback and after I got it back from the place my damn park brake doesn't work anymore!

 

I usually park on an incline at work and when I engaged the parking brake the car just kept rolling back.

 

I brought it back into them and they said they fixed it, but it still does it!

 

What the hell did they do?

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Could be they didn't adjust them enough, does the lever show some resistance when you yank it up?

 

How many clicks?

 

Could be the shoes or the drum are contaminated, you might try driving slowly, holding the button down, and pulling the lever up to where it has some resistance to scuff the shoes and drum a bit.

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Pretty sure the hand brake is cable activated. Not positive on a Subie, but that is how I have seen it on other cars. Look to see that the cable is attached to each brake, and to the bottom of the hand brake mechanism under the car. Might be a disconnected cable.

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Park brake shoes need to be adjusted. It can be done with a brake spoon (curved blade type tool used to turn the adjuster without removing the rotor). Or adjust the shoes outward a little at a time while removing/replacing the rotor several times until you get a nice tight fit.

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Park brake shoes need to be adjusted. It can be done with a brake spoon (curved blade type tool used to turn the adjuster without removing the rotor). Or adjust the shoes outward a little at a time while removing/replacing the rotor several times until you get a nice tight fit.

 

Is this something they should have done when I had the brakes/rotors replaced?

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Is this something they should have done when I had the brakes/rotors replaced?

 

Most certainly. They need to make it right- assuming they are capable.

 

The E-brake drums are just like any rear drum brake e-brakes, there are just no wheel cylinders.

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Sometimes when taking off the rear rotors, especially in rusty areas, I have seen the lining just fall off the parking brake shoes. If that happened and they didn't fix it, it could cause that problem. Most likely though they just backed off the adjusters when removing the old rotors and didn't readjust them properly.

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Most certainly. They need to make it right- assuming they are capable.

 

Seconded.

 

I would be a bit concerned about their competence though if they missed it the first time, and then still didn't fix it properly when you brought it back the second time. :-\

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